


Get Ready With Me: Star-Wars-Style

by Merayi



Series: TransFormation [3]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Angst, Angst and Humor, Anorexic Kylo (implied), Autumn, Awkward Crush, BB-8 is a Puppy!, Choices, Dog BB-8, Everyone Is Gay, F/F, First Dates, GRWM, Kylo Ren Needs a Hug, LGBTQ Character, Light Angst, M/M, Phasma Ships It, Prosthetics, Puppy Love, Trans Character, Trans Female Character, Trans Kylo Ren, Wingman Phasma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-09 10:44:05
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16448378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Merayi/pseuds/Merayi
Summary: Both girls are a little anxious about going on their first... not-a-date. Flatmates are helpful to have around sometimes.





	Get Ready With Me: Star-Wars-Style

**Author's Note:**

> Just snuck this one within two months of the last one. My final exam is this Friday, so hopefully I'll have more time to write after that. Also, Happy Halloween!

In two separate bedrooms, in two separate apartments, on two separate sides of the city, two women investigated their wardrobes and cursed.  
“What am I going to wear?! I have nothing to wear!”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Relax, Cinderella,” said Poe, in one such room. He lounged on Rey’s bed with his head in Finn’s lap. Their Jack Russel puppy, Baby, crawled over his legs. Rey had started out banning the little apricot-and-white dog from her room, but the damned thing was so cute that that rule hadn’t lasted long. Poe, Finn, and Baby watched with amusement as Rey – still dressed just in a towel – messily ripped articles of clothing from hangers, only to dump them on the floor in disgust. “You’re going on a picnic date, not marrying her.”

“It’s not a date… and you’re not helping!” Rey threw a wadded pair of socks at him. Baby tried to catch it, barking happily, and Poe quickly fished it out of his mouth. Rey hoped that the prickle that tingled over her skin at the m-word wasn’t as obvious as it looked. She brushed off her overthinking before it could start. “What is the point of having gay best friends if they can’t help you pick what to wear?!”

“Ouch!” Finn quipped, mockingly gripping his chest with one fist and doubling over, “Right in the stereotype!”

“Sure, sure, not a date,” was Poe’s response. “You only jumped up and down for ten minutes after she texted you because you’d had too much coffee.” 

Rey was tempted to throw a shoe after her pair of socks.

The weather didn’t promise to be perfect, but it was as good as possible for autumn, which still wasn’t bad; Rey desperately wanted to get the right balance of warm and casual and smart and sexy. Jeans or a skirt and stockings? A cardigan or a sweater? Boots or canvas shoes?

Ah, sometimes, having so many choices was paralyzing!

She wrinkled her nose scathingly as she looked at the array of clothes on her floor, feeling like a teenage girl for the first time in at least three years. They were just clothes. It didn’t really matter, did it? It wasn’t like Kyla was going to run screaming if Rey wore powder-white instead of daisy-white. 

But, she remembered the perfectly, carelessly, elegantly messy femininity in the other girl’s painted nails and dramatic make-up, and something in her felt the pressure of wanting to present herself well.  
After all, she had been the one to invite Kyla on a… an outing. It was not a date, not /really/. Kyla had texted her that she would like to hang out again, and Rey had had the great idea to take her on a surprise picnic. It was just something casual, laid-back, good for getting to know each other. She had just been so excited to get Kyla’s text because it meant that she really hadn’t been as painfully awkward as she thought she had been, and she hadn’t scared the poor girl off, and it was a great chance to make another queer femme friend. 

Either way, Rey didn’t want to make it look like she didn’t care enough to put effort in, but she had told Kyla casual without really knowing what that meant to a girl who wore torn stockings and punk boots to clubs.

Yeah, that was most of her issue. She wanted to make a good impression. With this opportunity to keep in contact with a girl she had met at a bar, she didn’t want to mess it up. 

“Rey,” Finn pulled her out of her panicked freeze and into panicked frenzy, “you have to leave in 45 minutes, and you’re still in a towel. Have you got everything else packed up?”

Finally bolstered into action, Rey made up her mind, shooing her two flatmates out of her room. Baby trotted after his owners happily.

Once the door was shut behind them, she dropped her towel on the floor so she could get dressed. She caught sight of herself in the mirror over her dressing table. Her reflection looked back, lean and wiry and naked. It reminded her that she wasn’t ready to go yet, and she didn’t have /that/ much time. 

Rey put on her bra, trying not to overthink her choices. It wasn’t like Kyla would see her bra or knickers anyway, she told herself; it didn’t matter what she wore. She had just chosen a matching pair because it made her feel more confident. 

Rey had decided on a pair of high-waisted, fitted corduroy pants the colour of milky coffee, an ivory blouse with cut-out shoulders, and knee-high boots of soft, brown leather. Over the blouse, she wound a wide, hazelnut-coloured, scarf ballerina-wrap style, and secured it across her torso with two thin, brown-leather belts.

As she bent to zip up her boots, Rey saw the roomy, draped cardigan she had worn to the bar the night she first met Kyla. A funny sense of nostalgia made her throw it on. The fuzzy material felt soft against the skin left bare over her shoulders.

It took forever to blow-dry her hair, but she did it anyway. It went all silky and floaty when it was blow-dried, and sat in soft, beachy waves around her face. 

Rey looked at the result in the mirror as she put on flat, gold hoop earrings and matching bangles. A shot of boldness made her apply thin wings of eyeliner, an extra coat of mascara, and dusty rose lipstick, and then sprinkle subtle gold shimmer over her eyelids, cheekbones, and lips.

She smiled at her reflection. She didn’t look too bad. The autumn tones brought out the fading olive tint of her skin, her scattering of freckles, her dark eyes and hair. The belts called attention to her slim waist, and the cardigan and scarf paired well. /Perfect./

Feeling pretty good about herself, Rey walked out into the living room to double-check that she had everything that she wanted to bring.

There, her flatmates waited.

“And the final decision is…?” Poe grinned, motioning for Rey to show off.

Poe whistled appreciatively, and Finn clapped happily, as Rey rolled her eyes and spun in a slow circle, holding her arms out like a windmill.

“The final decision is good!” Finn cheered. “Go knock her socks off, Rey!”

Sending them a bright smile, Rey collected her things and headed to her car.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Meanwhile, Kyla was having a similar panic. She stood bolted to her bedroom floor, frozen with indecision. She had two hours – two whole hours – before Rey was due to show up, but still every second raced by like a bird’s heartbeat. She still had to shower, and shave, and do her makeup, and figure out what to wear, and re-apply adhesive to her prosthesis, and… and… and… she couldn’t move! 

She didn’t turn when she heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. She didn’t respond when Phasma leaned against the doorframe. 

Silence stretched for a handful of heartbeats. Kyla could feel her flatmate watching her. She wished she would go away. 

“So… you gonna get ready, or are you going to go in your pyjamas?” 

Kyla fought the instinctive “shut up” back down her throat. Instead, she said, “I’m getting there.” 

“Slowly.” Phasma straightened up and crossed her arms over her chest, raising an eyebrow. “Tell you what, you go shower, and I’ll pick out some clothes for you, if you do the dishes tomorrow night and the night after. Deal?” 

“But… but… but…!” 

“But, if you don’t like my choices, then at least you know for certain what you don’t wanna wear, which is an improvement from glaring at your floor.” 

“Fine.” As useful and practical as Phasma’s logic was, sometimes Kyla hated it. “Come back in, like, five minutes, okay?” 

Wordlessly, succinctly, Phasma nodded, and marched off down the corridor. Kyla shut her bedroom door firmly. Scrunching her nose up, she stuck her tongue out at the wall in the direction of the retreating footsteps. It was childish, but it still felt good.

Once sure she was alone, Kyla lifted her nightshirt off over her head and dumped it on the floor. Reaching back with one hand, she unclasped the sports bra she slept in, and shimmied it off down her arms. Clavicles and scapulas protruded starkly with the movement of her shoulders, but she didn’t notice. Standing there in her knickers, she tried to look down as little as possible. 

Kyla unpeeled her prosthesis one-by-one, feeling the skin underneath them pull up as the adhesive slowly gave way. It was an odd sensation, especially since her skin had lost much of its elasticity. She lay them down carefully on her desk. 

The prosthesis looked slightly odd out of context. Made of peach-coloured silicone encased in a thin layer of clear polyurethane, they were shaped kind of like round, triangular pyramids currently sitting on their apexes (which, in this case, was a circle of bright salmon-orange silicone that roughly resembled a nipple and areola). 

But, they looked close enough to real when attached, and made the dysphoria that little less overwhelming. That was really all that mattered until she could save up enough money to start hormones, Kyla reminded herself ruefully. /If you can’t grow your own mammary tissue, store bought is fine?/ the annoying, little voice in her head mocked. She wrinkled her nose. 

No prosthetic was ever going to 100% real, and there wasn’t exactly a huge market. She had been lucky enough to find ones that weren’t cheap foam, or unnatural colours, or a kilogram each, or attached with a full-body harness, or cost a mint. It was hard enough buying boobs when most online sites weren’t allowed to show any nip, plastic or not. Like, /hey, we’re selling this with a vulnerable target audience in mind, but we’re gonna make you feel like you’re a pervert for buying an obscene body part./ Ugh. She bet people needing prosthetic legs didn’t have to deal with this shit. 

Ugh. Kyla pursed her lips and shook her head to clear it of disappointments. Time to get back to task. 

From the bottom drawer of the desk, she removed a packet of alcohol wipes, a cheap, plastic paint brush, and small bottle of skin adhesive. It had been advertised for cosplayers, mainly, to stick on horns and wings and gems and ears and noses and talons and God only knew what. It was medical grade, but not designed to stick on an element of self, a missing piece, a needed body part.

/Stay. On. Task. Don’t let the dysphoria win./

This part was kinda fun, though. It was almost artistic. 

Well, the first step wasn’t so artistic, but Kyla could almost pretend that she was prepping a canvas or something as she gently wiped down both prosthetics, as carefully as she could. The rubbing alcohol dissolved some of the grotty, old adhesive and brought some of the stickiness back to to what remained. It also removed the layer of skin cells that had stuck to the silicone. Kyla wore the prosthetics so much of the time that they didn’t get cleaned as often as they should, and they could start to smell a little mouldy after a while. 

Pouring a little bit of glue into the bottle cap, Kyla hummed tunelessly to herself as she grabbed the brush and began painting a fresh layer around the edges of the prosthetics, where the surface stuck most to her skin. White glue beaded on the peach silicone, but it would have dried clear by the time she got back from the shower. It only took a few minutes to do, and only a few minutes to dry to the proper tackiness to stick to skin.

Done. Kyla wrapped herself up in a thick bathrobe, stood at the door listening for sounds, and – hearing none – opened the door and scuttled awkwardly down the corridor toward the bathroom as fast as she could. Once there, she shut the door and locked it behind her. She moved her towel from the rack to hang it over the mirror. That was the most important thing out of the way.

She hated everything about showering, but she hated feeling grubby even more, and it wasn’t like she could even consider going out smelling like /boy sweat/. Like always, she made the whole process as quick as efficient as possible, and she was in her bedroom wrapped again in her bathrobe within fifteen minutes. 

As Phasma had promised, Kyla found two sets of clothes laid out on her bed. She stroked her freshly-shaved chin as she considered her options: one more Victorian goth, one more trad goth. Okay, not bad. Phasma may even have a sense of fashion after all. She was pleasantly surprised. 

For Kyla, clothes weren’t ever “just clothes”; they decided if she got mis-gendered that day or not, if people saw her or just stared at her. Clothes, makeup, long hair: they were a part of her identity in a way that was just different than it was for cis women. 

Actually… the more Kyla thought about it, the less certain she was. How did Phasma know her so well? She hadn’t known at all what she had wanted, but somehow that was more or less it. Both outfits were chosen with the current weather in mind: they covered what they needed to cover and revealed what she wanted to reveal. That balance was difficult to get at the best of times. She was grateful for autumn weather now, though. It made things so much easier. Summer was too… exposing. 

Finally, looking at the clothes her flatmate had laid out, she nodded in approval. She might as well go with Phasma’s choice. After all, Kyla – with her platform boots and torn stockings and band shirts – wouldn’t have really had the faintest idea where to start, getting dressed to go out with a “normal” girl.

Well, not /going out with/, not like /that/. It wasn’t like it was a date or anything. It was just something casual, laid-back, good for getting to know each other. 

And, well, not that Rey was “normal”. Rey had proved herself to be wonderfully, brilliantly different. 

Kyla hated that idea usually, that the girls to hang out with were the “you’re different” girls, the “you’re not like other girls” ones, but that wasn’t what she meant with Rey. Kyla remembered the sunny smile and cute dimples Rey had showed off so sweetly. She remembered how fierce the other girl had looked staring… /him/ down. She remembered how good it had felt to just be held by someone who got it, who understood. Rey was one of those “normal” girls – whatever the hell “normal” really was – but somehow, she looked at Kyla and didn’t just see a low brow ridge or masculine jaw or a six-foot frame. She saw KYLA: a woman, not a “guy in a dress”.

Yeah, that was most of her issue. She wanted to make a good impression. With this opportunity to keep in contact with a girl she had met at a bar, she didn’t want to mess it up. She didn’t have many friends. She had even fewer cis friends. 

Prosthesis restuck and fully dressed again, Kyla ran a comb through her long, wet hair, before starting a series of braids from her centre parting that wreathed her head and wove into a messy, Victorian-style bun. Tiny braids continued down from the bun amid the thick mane of black hair that fell in waves down her back. Her long bangs curled over her high forehead, hiding her ears. 

By the time she had pinned the last curl in place, her fingers were aching, and her hands were cramping. It was so worth it. Her hair was one of the few things about herself that she thought was truly beautiful - maybe just because society so closely linked long hair with femininity, with softness, with womanhood, and she happened to be graced with good genetics when it came to hair - and she took great pride in doing wonderfully intricate hairstyles. It had taken her a long time to learn, but now she braided and twisted and curled with graceful competence. Every strand was placed perfectly to show off what she liked (cheekbones and neck, almost, kinda) and to hide everything she didn’t (jaw, chin, forehead, and everything else). 

Giving herself a minute to stretch out her hands and fingers, Kyla looked at her phone to check the time. She still had over an hour. It shouldn’t take her that long to do to her makeup. She was well-practiced by now. 

Like with doing her hair, makeup was something Kyla loved for the inherent femininity society saw in it and the artistry of applying it. Before her mirror, she could become someone she wanted to be. She could put on a battle mask. She could use it to hide without hiding. Knowing that she had even that skin-thin layer between the world and who she really was made it easier to cope. 

Veneer painted on, Kyla checked the time again. What to do for half an hour? 

After she put her keys and earbuds in her purse, she ended up just lying on the couch, scrolling through social media and pretending that it was possible to just digest the butterflies in her stomach. 

Then, with the jarring shock of a gunshot, there was a knock at the door. 

Phasma yelled, “Hey, Kyla!” at the same moment Kyla yelled, “Got it!” 

In half a second, she was off the couch, and racing down the steps to the front door so fast she nearly tripped, her long, skinny legs moving so she was nearly flying. She didn’t know where this sudden rush of adrenaline had come from, but she was running too fast to question it. 

Just as suddenly as she started moving, Kyla stopped. She paused by the door. She took a couple shallow gulps of air to steady her breathing. It didn’t work. Then, she opened the front door, and a genuine smile spread over Kyla’s face. 

There was Rey.


End file.
